Mom delivers baby on Pennsylvania Turnpike
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- You could call it a miracle on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. A mom and dad were on their way to a Pittsburgh midwife center three weeks ago when things quickly took a turn and it became a roadside baby delivery.
Nick and Sarah Holmes knew their baby girl, Lottie Holmes, was arriving soon, but they didn't expect her to speed into the world on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
"I was like, 'We need to go, we need to leave.' Our goal was the midwife center, that's who I went through with her, that's where we were going to deliver. Have like a nice water birth is what I was hoping for," Sarah said.
They left their New Castle home and Sarah had a natural roadside birth instead.
Her husband was on the phone with the midwife center as they shifted into high gear.
"Right after he said, 'if you feel the need to push, we'll pull over,' and then my water broke and I was like, 'my water broke,' and within a couple minutes, I was like, 'I gotta push,' I was like, 'she's -- it's coming,'" Sarah said.
They stopped at a pull-off area at Mile Marker 18.1 between the Beaver Valley and Cranberry interchanges.
Turnpike equipment operator Bob Demko was the first on the scene 10 minutes before the ambulance arrived. He was working nearby when he heard a woman was having a baby on the turnpike over the radio.
He rushed over and found Sarah in active labor outside of their car and Nick, a former firefighter, delivering his newborn baby while on the phone with 911.
"I'm super proud of my husband, he did so well," Sarah said.
"I wasn't super freaked out or fearful, it was just a natural thing that had to happen," she said.
The turnpike worker helped in any way he could, handing them blankets and towels. State troopers also showed up to assist.
"He was like, 'I don't have any kids, so it was really cool to be able to witness this.' Even the state troopers were like, 'it's really cool for it to be something positive on the turnpike, to be called to something like a birth and not the opposite.'"
Little Lottie Holmes was certainly in a hurry. She was born on March 21 at 7:35 p.m., weighing 8 pounds, 11 ounces.
"She was out in like two and a half pushes," Sarah said.
Lottie was in the NICU at the AHN Wexford Hospital for nearly two days because she was hypothermic. Now she's home and healthy.
"We're just super blessed," Sarah said.
